Corey Ladd, 27, had prior drug convictions and was sentenced
September 4, 2013 as a “multiple offender to 20 years hard labor at the
Department of Corrections.”

Marijuana use still remains a ticket to jail in most of the
country and prohibition is enforced in a highly racially discriminatory
manner.A recent report of the
ACLU, “The War on Marijuana in Black and White,” documents millions of
arrests for marijuana and shows the “staggeringly disproportionate impact on
African Americans.”

Jack Cole of Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) argues that “the “war on drugs” has
been, is, and forever will be, a total and abject failure.This is not a war on drugs, this is a war on
people, our own people, our children, our parents, ourselves.” LEAP, which is
made up of thousands of current and former members of the law enforcement and
criminal justice communities, has been advocating for the de-criminalization of
drugs and replacing it with regulation and control since 2002.

Karen O’Keefe, who lived in New Orleans for years and now
works as Director of State Policies at the Marijuana
Policy Project, said "A sentence of 20 years in prison for possessing
a substance that is safer that alcohol is out of step with Louisiana voters,
national trends, and basic fairness and justice.Limited prison space and prosecutors' time
should be spent on violent and serious crime, not on prosecuting and
incarcerating people who use a substance that nearly half of all adults have
used."

Defense lawyers are appealing the twenty year sentence for
Mr. Ladd, but the hundreds of thousands of marijuana arrests continue each
year.This insanity must be stopped.

Bill
teaches at Loyola University New Orleans and volunteers with the Center for
Constitutional Rights.You
can reach Bill at quigley77@gmail.com.